


Chasing Windmills

by ButterflyPrincess



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: Angst, Drama, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, Josh is suffering, M/M, it's kinda over-dramatic I'm sorry, jk i'm not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyPrincess/pseuds/ButterflyPrincess
Summary: The Downfall of Team Liquid in 2016 and basically The Sorrows Of Young Joshua Hartnett followed by the sparkle of a Flame





	1. The downfall of Joshua Hartnett

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a nice little One Shot about Josh getting over Sam with the help of our Lord and Saviour Flame but somehow I got lost in rambling on about his suffering, so I'm just gonna take this as a first chapter and the second part will feature Thorin's favourite Korean becoming Josh's favourite Korean :^)
> 
> Peace

1\. The downfall of Joshua Hartnett

 

“ _Sometimes love isn't enough, Josh. Sometimes the other person doesn't love you back or just doesn't love you as much as you love them. And sometimes you will end up parting ways and sometimes you just cannot be together because the things you want in life are just so different. It hurts so much but in the end it's how things go. The most important thing is to know when you have to stop chasing windmills.”_

 

Josh has long forgotten why his mom had given him this lecture once. He doesn't know if it had been something about one of her ex-boyfriends or if was just a lesson of a movie they had watched together. All he knows is that the memory of it is always in the back of his head. It used to just whisper at him, silently. Barely noticeable and without real significance. Just something he remembers every now and then. But recently it has been shouting, yelling, screaming.

 

Every time he looks at Sam he has to think of it. _Sometimes the other person just doesn't love you as much as you love them._ It hits the nail on the head, honestly. Because Sam does love him, that goes without saying. They've been friends for so long, best friend even, they are playing on the same team, they spend so much of their time together and Sam is still the one that makes Josh angry the rarest. And Sam is the one that can put up with Josh's bullshit the longest. There's no way their love isn't mutual.

 

Yet Josh knows it really isn't. Not a hundred percent. He loves Sam. In the way that makes you all wobbly around a person. In the way that is nagging on you like angry, never-sleeping butterflies consuming your stomach and your entire body with it. It's paired with the stinging truth that Sam might love him back, might love him a fucking lot but not as much. Not in this way. Not nearly enough.

 

Sam loves Josh in the way that makes you care about another person, makes you care about them a lot and deeply and with everything you've got. It's the reason why he rarely ever yells at Josh when he's being unreasonable and “toxic”, as Reddit calls it over and over and over. It's the reason why he takes the time to try and talk to Josh about the things that upset him and why he puts up with the often hurtful slurs that his friend throws at him when other people have long given up on him.

 

In a way they both depend on each other. Josh needs someone to care about him, to pat him on the back and console him when everyone else is having a hard time trying not to punch him or yell at him or kick him out of the team. Without Sam, who knows how his life would've gone? Who knows if he had been able to hold himself back at least a little, even though it's barely enough most of the time? Without Sam he probably would've left Team Liquid within the first few weeks of training.

 

And Sam? Well, Sam almost views himself as some kind of masochist for enduring all this. The yelling, the shutting everyone out, the misunderstandings that happen on a weekly, sometimes almost daily, basis. He never quite understood why he hadn't dropped Josh in the very early stages of their friendship. When he mentions it in front of Ashley once, she just shakes her head, laughing and saying something about how that's just how he works. That he always feels responsible for every person in his life and that he would've never forgiven himself if hadn't spent time on trying to understand and help Josh.

 

However, no matter how strongly they are connected, no matter how much they care about each other, the balance of it is severely lackluster. The way it works – or rather doesn't work – is strange in itself. Sam is giving and giving and giving and he is giving so much more than Josh. He supports him emotionally, stands by his side more than anyone else and he is the only one to never threaten or lecture him in return for any of his behavioural failures.

 

Josh only takes, at least that's what he feels like and objectively, he might even be right. He doesn't have anything to give Sam. Technically, Sam doesn't need him in any way and if there is a way in which he is any use to Sam, he doesn't see it. So he takes and takes and takes everything that Sam offers him and tries to suppress the guilt that is lurking deep in the back of his head, ready to jump at him at any moment.

 

Yet, Josh _feels_ more. Much more. Because while Sam leaves the house every few days to go on dates – which during the last few months have evolved to being with Ashley exclusively – Josh just stays in, wishing that Sam would take him out one day.

 

It's ridiculous and Josh wants to make jokes about himself, loudly and in public. He would love splitting himself in two so that one half could become a world-famous stand-up comedian just by making fun of the other half acting like one of those women in movies who are in their mid-thirties, desperate for love and the perfect white knight on the shiny horse who'll take them to the land of fairytales and lovey dovey weddings after knowing each other for like three days.

 

He wants to slap himself every time his gaze lingers on Sam two seconds longer than appropriate and every time he thinks about him when he sees a poster of some low-quality rom-com.

 

He knows that Sam does love him. But he doesn't exactly _love_ him. He wants to take care of Josh, look after and in any case, he even feels responsible for him, even if that's silly and probably way too much. But it's not the kind of love that makes Sam want to kiss Josh, to hold him at night, to fall down on his knee some day and-

 

Josh wants to throw up about himself. This is honestly disgusting. That's not him, that doesn't fit his reputation and neither does it fit anything he stands for or anything about how he's pictured himself over the years. He isn't some desperate woman who has been been with so many worthless men and now the perfect one doesn't reciprocate her feelings. He isn't like that.

 

Yet, he is. He thinks that way, his heart beats that way and the fantasy of just pulling Sam into a kiss after every victory on stage never goes away, no matter how much he wishes it would.

 

Josh has always been a fighter, he hates giving up and he hates when he sees other people giving up and his anger about this has already cost him one or two League accounts but in the end, it's who he is, isn't it? He fights for his goals and doesn't stop before he reaches them.

 

A part of him wants to fight for Sam. It's the part that makes him wrinkle his nose every time Sam mentions Ashley coming over. There's this sick, twisted part of him that blames her for being Sam's girlfriend and this part wants to tell her to fuck off every time he sees her. This part of him just wants to tell Sam about everything he feels and tell him about the two or three times they ended up kissing when drunk.

 

But Josh is not stupid. He might be impulsive at times, yes, but he is not that kind of person. He took long enough to come to terms with his feelings by himself, he wouldn't dare to shove them into Sam's face like this. He's taking enough from him as it is. He takes up a lot of the poor boy's energy already. He can't even think about taking his relationship with this beautiful, kind girl away from him.

 

Because, in the every end, Sam is his best friend and he wants him to be happy. And if saying nothing is all it takes to maintain this happiness, then so be it.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Josh wishes it wasn't was much of a satisfaction. He wishes it wouldn't feel good to peace out and let them all go to ashes when it matters the most. He wishes it wouldn't fell so fucking good to see how much Sam hates to see him leaving. It almost makes him feel as if there really was something between them, something more than friendship but then again, letting a friend go hurts just as much as letting a lover go and Josh is very aware of that.

 

Sam blames him. That much is certain. Honestly, it would be stupid if Sam didn't blame him. Josh is essentially the captain leaving his sinking ship first even though he never really was a captain after all. He might have said the most, might have known the most and everyone, including his ego, tells him that he was overall the best player but in the end, to be a captain, you need the respect of your crew and he never had that. Not as much as he would've liked, at least.

 

But after the umpteenth time that Loco yelled at him in three days of practice, after a million pointless conversations in which no one ever bothered to listen to what he might have to say, after dealing with a bunch of oh so grown-up men who just constantly branded him as a spoiled brat who is unable to behave... Well, he just couldn't stand it anymore. So when Echo Fox approached him, he simply accepted.

 

Thinking about it, it might have just been some kind of impulsive reaction. For him, it had always been natural to run and go for a better opportunity when something goes wrong in his life. Like when school was seeming pointless and he went for League instead. It's what he does, it's how he works. It might not be healthy, no, but he doubts that he can actually do something about it. So when he sees the opportunity to get out of this hell hole, he takes it.

 

Sam is different in that regard. Sam would save that sinking ship without leaving anyone behind. He would keep it at the surface with his bare hands id he needed to. Josh adores it, really. Sam has tried so hard to keep it all together, to make things work. The same goes for Matt, to be fair. They've always tried to make both parties come to their senses whenever there was an argument, no matter how small the chance that it was actually doing any good. They've dealt with a bunch of huge egos and they somehow managed not to go completely insane. So he's probably doing one of the most selfless things in his life when he decides to just leave.

 

Maybe, after all, that's what his mom meant when she said, _“Sometimes you just cannot be together because the things you want in life are just so different.”_ While Josh always seeks for the next level, always looking for a way to become better and better and find the best fish out of the sea of opportunities, Sam just makes the best out of current situations. He doesn't necessarily want to go forward. Instead he constantly tries to improve the point where he is standing.

 

Josh doesn't think that his friend will get anywhere this way. He had told him so often enough, too. It's one of the few thing they actually fight over every now and then. When Josh accuses Sam of not trying hard enough, of not actually wanting to improve, of not being worthy of making Team Liquid go anywhere past its infamous fourth place. These are the only times when Sam is genuinely angry at him because then it's personal and what he replies in those situations hurts Josh more than anything but he deserves it, doesn't he? For throwing insults at his best friend?

 

Right now however, he just drinks in the tension of the moment when he announces his departure. The reserved nods, the mildly shocked looks and Sam who looks like the most betrayed person on the entire planet.

 

But no matter how bitter Josh is and how much he wants to just look at his future, he still wraps his arms around Sam tightly before he leaves. He pulls him into a hug and his heart is still doing those silly flips as if there was anything to hope for. He hates it but the feeling is just as pleasant as it is bitter-sweet so he holds on to it a bit longer.

 

“Fuck you”, Sam whispers into the fabric of Josh's shirt.

 

“I love you, too”, Josh says weakly, hoping Sam takes it as a joke but his voice is far too weak to sound funny.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Team Liquid loses. Of course they do. Rationally, it's because Arcsecond has to off-role Jungle for them, they only have the choice between pest and cholera for ADC and their teamwork just can't be good no matter how hard they tried in the little time they had.

 

However, Josh can't help but look at their demise with an arrogant smirk, convinced that this is it. This is Team Liquid without him. Nothing. This team is nothing without him. Sam can't win his lane without him, Jae-hun even less so. Botlane is lost anyway.

 

Matt can't keep them together, Sam doesn't know how to. It's obvious, it jumps Josh right into the eye. He tries to understand why the casters don't seem to see it, why they act shocked and disappoint when it's so fucking obvious why this team is doomed. Maybe it's their job to be dull. If so then Loco should probably join them. ...Too bad no one actually wants to hear that asshole talk.

 

Josh involuntarily thinks about all the thing he would do right now if his place wasn't in the audience but there on stage. What he could do to make them win. It wouldn't even be hard. Winning against EnVy isn't rocket science. But no matter what, he can't do anything from here and, honestly, it's beyond his interest. The only thing he does is looking up to Sam every now and then, knowing that he must be blaming Josh for this disaster. Rightfully so of course.

 

Sam doesn't see him, however. He is focused on his screen, trying to get something done and failing miserably. They've learned to ignore their surroundings when on stage early in their careers. Sam has always been better at it than Josh, though. Josh loves to make them cheer. In the past it has made him make some plays that weren't always smart and sometimes Sam had called him out on it, called him an idiot and a fame bitch. But that's over now.

 

He sighs and stands up. Just turns away and leaves the stadium.

 

He doesn't need to stay in order to know what is going to happen here. He doesn't need to see it. He knows the end of it already, he knows that EnVy will crash and burn in the later stages of the bracket anyway. And the last thing he wants is to see Sam finding him, coming up to him, smiling this dorky smile of his, shrug and look at him as if it was nothing. As if it wasn't hurting him to lose like that and as if he just fucked up once and next time everything will be better. Josh knows these moments from Spring and he isn't fond of déjà vus.

 

By the time he gets home, it's over. TL has lost to NV. Sam is probably sitting in their gaming house, devastated but refusing to let it show. Josh can basically see him trying to make the best out of it. Making the best out of something instead of leaving... Josh isn't even sure what the best choice in this scenario really is but he certainly does know that one more day in that house would've driven him crazy.

 

He thinks about sending a short message at Sam. Something to cheer him up but he can't come up with something. He doesn't have it in him right now. It's not how they work anyway. Josh isn't the one to cheer _anyone_ up, basically and definitely not Sam because it's just... It works the other way around. That's how it always goes. So him being in the position of having to be there for Sam instead... It's odd, he doesn't like it. It feels uncomfortable.

 

He throws away his phone. Maybe later. Yeah. Later. Definitely.

 

Hours later he decides to act like he's never watched it. It's the easiest way to get rid of the guilt that won't stop nagging at him. Saying he's aware what happened but he didn't actually watch it. That he was asleep during all of it. Just offering to watch the VODs on stream. It's dishonest, even pointless maybe. But it's easier than explaining why he didn't find any of the kind words that Sam would've deserved.

 


	2. Okay and good and maybe pretty amazing

Okay and good and maybe pretty amazing

 

“Three years?”, Josh asks curtly.

 

He looks up from the pile of papers in front of him, his eyebrow raised. He's gone through it. He knows every line of the contract and he's satisfied. Mostly. Good conditions, insurance, blah blah blah. All that shit that he actually had to take multiple crash courses for when he had decided to get into e-sports as a player. And even though he'd never been a good student he has always been fairly intelligent. It wasn't hard for him to understand what he had to pay attention to.

 

So, when he says that the contract that Immortals is approaching him with looks good, it really does look good. However, there's one thing that's bothering him. He reads it over and over and tries to figure out whether it's a joke or if they're actually being serious. He checks it again, double-checks it, triple-checks it and by the fourth time he thinks he has qualified for insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

 

“Three years”, the agent confirms. Josh nods silently. Lets the thought work through his head. Watches how doors seem to close around him and how a few open but only half-way.

 

Three years are a long time. He thinks about who he was three years ago and what he wanted to be at that time. He was barely fourteen, not much more going on in his life than taking a liking to jacking-off regularly, video games and maybe liking that one dude's butt a bit more than the other girl's boobs. And sometimes his mum would try to make him come to his senses regarding school which he wasn't exactly fond of. Nothing more to it, really.

 

It would've been too much to say that he wasn't an actual human with a personality but looking back at it he really believes that this version of him had no idea about life and living. Yet, he remembers that his fourteen-year-old self _thought_ he had a clue. That he knew everything. And honestly, he doesn't think it's much different now. Because, despite feeling more mature and experienced overall, maybe he actually isn't. Maybe he's just the same as he was when he was fourteen. Thinking that he knows everything but actually, he knows nothing. 

 

Considering this, how would it ever be a smart decision to sign a three-year-contract to a team? He has changed so much over the past three years and e-sports had changed even more. Would he even still want to play in three years? Not to mention play for the same team?

 

He worries his lip and looks at the agent in front of him. He had forgotten his name within the first five seconds of the man mentioning it. But it doesn't matter honestly. He is just some freelancer probably. Maybe still a law student trying to gain some practical experience or whatever.

 

“We...uhm.... want the players to stick together for longer”, the agent starts nervously as the silence stretches, “You know, bonding and really forming a unit. That's important for success. Many Korean teams have stuck together for a long time and had success with it.” The brown-haired man whose every feature just screams “average” clearly has no idea what he's talking about. Maybe they just wrote something down for him to say in case Josh was concerned.

 

He inhales slowly. “Listen... I can see that you don't have a single clue what you are talking about. Why doesn't one of the “big boys” talk to me?” Josh leans back in his seat, positive that he has the upper hand in this. And he has, technically. Because he didn't apply for this.  _They_ want  _him_ . Not vice-versa. 

 

Mister Average starts stammering something about them being out-of-town and that he was the manager's son and that they had told him that this was supposed to be easy, that the deal had basically already been made and Josh feels a bit of sympathy for the poor guy. He's clearly not made for this, probably better seated in front of a computer, on his own, not interacting with people. An introvert just like most gamers. Josh can relate but sympathy won't exactly get him anywhere in this. 

 

“Jesus... What a mess. You know what? Tell your boss or dad or whatever the shenanigans are here that I'm considering, okay? The organisation seems good to me but three years seems a bit long to me. And maybe they can convince me or shorten the duration of the contract. Thanks for... taking up my precious Friday afternoon. Great job.” He rises from his chair and walks towards the door.   
  


“Uh-Uhm they also said they wanted to get Flame. Like, I think that's a good one? I-I have no idea but-”

 

Josh turns around, hand on the door-knob. A smile starts to play around his lips. “Is his contract the same?”   
  
Mister Average shrugs helplessly. “I-I think so.”

 

“Hmm...”, Josh muses, “That's something I can work with. I'll call.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Josh doesn't need to call. Doesn't even have the chance to. They call him.

 

It's ridiculous in a way. The flaming speeches about the importance of domestic talent and the crucial advantages of staying in the same team for a longer period of time and their plans to build the strongest roster of NA – as if that wasn't every team's goal.

 

“So, I heard you gonna pick up Flame?”, he asks at some point. The idea is thrilling. One of the very best Korean toplaners of Season 3. And he has most likely not gotten significantly worse. It makes him smile. That's a chance, a good one. One that he should consider taking. A toplaner he could actually make something happen with. Intriguing.

 

He thinks about Sam. Mediocre toplaner at best but to Josh that hadn't always mattered. Not really at least. Not when Sam was smiling at him, hugging him... _No._ He forces the thought down. This is not about Sam, this is about his future career. And for that matter it's only the quality that counts.

 

The manager on the other end of the line confirms it. They are trying to get Flame on board and it's looking good so far. He's most likely going to accept the offer because, well, NA offers the most money after China, the climate in California is nice, the food... depends and overall there are worse deals to make.

 

Josh isn't told that literally, of course, but he can't think of many more reasons to come to NA. Their overwhelming international record surely isn't one.

 

“So... Three years, huh...?”

 

~*~*~*~

 

It's almost magical, maybe even something of philosophical value when you meet another player in person. When a player tag turns into a name, when a photograph or a video or a stream turns into a real person. Because when you only see people via the internet or TV or in older pictures it feels like they don't actually exist. You know that they do but it's hard to believe. The more famous they are the harder it gets, the more it feels like they are out of reach and not more than faces on a big screen.

 

So when Josh meets Flame for the first time, when he finally meets the former, and even current, legend, “Flame” becomes Lee Hojong. Hojong who is significantly older than him but smaller and looks up at him as if he had never done anything wrong in his life. Hojong who is still a bit confused about hand-shakes and at how Americans seem to be open and distant at the same time.

 

His English is endurable but nonetheless it's almost a bit annoying to talk slower than usual and maybe a bit less even. And to wait a long time for answers but in the end it's going to get better and that it will all have been worth it, right?

 

Josh hopes so at the very least. He has signed the contract, he's on board with this, almost sold to the idea that they will be able to make all of this work. They have time. At least until Spring and until play-offs and until Worlds even longer. However, IEM is rather soon and he doesn't know how to feel about it.

 

It doesn't matter, realistically. Samsung Galaxy is in the mix, second place at Worlds, with loads of talent. So who is supposed to win over them? Josh is a fighter. Of course he is and he would never surrender the game before it has started but he's not only a fighter but also a realist so he knows that this isn't really going to be about winning a tournament but mostly about gaining experience, trying out some things and learning from it. Just trying to go as deep as possible and make the best out of it.

 

Their coach Dylan is saying the same thing and it's soothing, very soothing when thinking back to his time on Team Liquid when Josh had to wonder in how many contrasting ways two minds could operate every time he got into a fight with Loco. At the beginning he had always believed that maybe yes, maybe he was just too inexperienced or maybe they just had different opinions on certain aspects of the game. Towards the end, Josh had been convinced Loco was doing it on purpose. Maybe that's a bit childish of him to think but it had seemed like the only possible answer to this question.

 

“Joshie, what mean?”

 

Josh freezes for half a second and turns around way too slowly to seem natural when Hojong speaks up after Dylan is finished. _Joshie._ Why would anyone call him “Joshie”? Why would anyone _except Sam_ call him that? This has always been _Sam's_ thing. _Their_ thing even. It was something special because only Sam would call him “Joshie”. Well, some of the fangirls, too, but, while he was thankful for them, he didn't exactly care what they called him.

 

“Joshie?”, Hojong asks again as if to bring Josh back to reality.

 

“Uhm, we'll be fine. We don't have much time, so it's not bad if we don't win. Okay?” He tries to put it simple, knowing that Hojong probably doesn't understand every word he says. But it works out so far.

 

Hojong nods at that and Josh can see it in his eyes. That he wants to win nonetheless. Even though they don't absolutely have to. Even though no one would blame them if they didn't make it far in this tournament. He smiles contently. That's the kind of thing that he had always wished to see on TL.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Josh is not ignorant. Or deaf or blind or anything along those lines. He has heard the tales of Korean imports, has seen the GIFs, read the tweets. Alongside that, he has had Gwangjin and Jaehun on his old team. He knows about the clichés. That they tend to feel more or less superior to the domestic players, hate being treated like children and tend to be overly touchy.

 

While Gwangjin and Jaehun seemed to exist mainly in the first two categories, Hojong thrives in the last one.

 

Josh doesn't know why or when it started, if it had a context originally but it doesn't take a lot of time until Hojong starts hugging him from behind in the kitchen every morning. He's smaller than Josh but his arms fit around his waist effortlessly when he yawns a, “Good morning, Joshie.” Once, he takes Hojong's hands then and removes them from his body, only to turn around, grab Hojong's hips and lift him up just because he can. Because Hojong is so tiny compared to him and so light and looks so happy when he does that.

 

They both laugh and it's a silly thing to look at and even sillier to think about because despite the age difference going the other way, Josh feels like he is something like an _older_ brother to Hojong. Being taller than him, explaining the things they are told in a simpler way, even though Eugene could probably just mediate everything.

 

“Get a room.” Speaking – thinking – of the devil. Eugene enters the kitchen and slips past the two of them towards the coffee machine.

 

Hojong looks a bit confused, can't really understand the metaphor. Josh thinks that maybe it's better if he doesn't.

 

Thinking about it, it's almost like that phrase is haunting Josh.

 

_Get a room._

 

An arm around Sam during a movie night. – _Get a room._

 

Sam and him in a long hug after a hard-fought series. – _Get a room._

 

Sam using an insanely bad pick-up-line on him. – _Get a room._

 

Him poking Sam in the side, making him laugh and eventually starting a tickle-fight in the middle of the practice room. – _Get a room._

 

...Him wrapping his arms around Hojong, lifting him up like a dancing partner. – _Get a room._

 

It's a weird parallel. It reminds him of the good times on TL, the good times with Sam. When things were easy and everyone joked around with each other. Sometimes he wants those times back. The easy times, the fun times, the times when he still thought of that team as a family.

 

But this is in the past, it's over. He's here now. In Korea with his new team and IEM soon to start. This is about here and now. And he still has his arms around Hojong even though he let him back down on the floor as Eugene came in. He lets go a bit awkwardly.

  
“Jesus, don't look at me like I actually caught you in the act.” Eugene takes his cup of coffee and leaves while Hojong looks up at Josh as if to ask what the hell was going on. Josh answers with a shrug. Maybe he actually doesn't know. Maybe he doesn't even know if he knows.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“There's already an inside-joke by Inven about you two. That this bromance will survive until Josh learns Korean or Hojong learns English.” Dylan is shaking his head as he says it and Josh laughs wholeheartedly at it. It's funny because it might actually be true.

 

They get along well, extremely well even. Josh finds himself with Hojong's arms draped all over him more often than not and it's almost insane how often their hands find each other for no valid reason. They don't talk a lot, though. It's mostly due to the language barrier that only slowly lowers but partly it's Josh knowing that many issues he has had in the past had their origins in too much talking and talking a bit more honestly than necessary.

 

But the joke refers to something else that's haunting Josh way more and will most likely continue to do so. They both have a history of being atrocious team mates, Hojong a bit more in Solo Queue and Josh a bit more in competitive but in the end it's the same thing. In the end it's both of them being famous for their temperament and the likelihood of losing their temper rather easily.

 

Yet, there's no sign of it. Honestly, Josh thinks it doesn't even make sense that everyone is so friendly and happy and just seems immune to tilt, even after more than a few failed scrims in the few days they've been playing together. It's a 180 degree turn from the way everyone had almost always been on edge on TL with three out of five players and the coach yelling at each other and Sam and Matt slowly but surely losing their patience with them.

 

“Fuck!”

 

Josh almost chokes on the way he wants to laugh at Hojong's cursing. _Well, at least the curse-words start coming out on default._ He can't quite make out whether that's a good or a bad thing, though.

 

“What are you doing?”, Josh laughs as Hojong fails miserably at placing his coffee on the table, spilling half of it on his already empty plate.

 

“Burn my fingers”, he whines and Josh thinks it's adorable. Not adorable in the way that Sam was when he rambled on for hours and hours about something that Josh didn't care about but listened to stories about anyway just because Sam was so excited about it. But still adorable.

 

“Awww, do you want me to kiss it better?”, he asks jokingly.

 

Josh is a bit taken aback as Hojong is actually pouting at him and nodding at the offers, holding out his poor, burned hands to him.

 

“This is going to be social media gold”, Rob “Leonyx” Lee sing-songs happily, pulling out his phone in a hurry. Josh hates that guy.

 

However, he takes Hojong's hands into his eventually, letting his thumbs caress them carefully and he ignores how his breath hitches a little at that, how his heart makes a little, barely noticeable jump. He slowly brings Hojong's hands to his mouth, snickering uncontrollably. Hojong does the same. It's only a slight touch with his lips but something's intense in the way that they look at each other, both laughing in a way that's just genuinely happy.

 

“The girls are going to love this!”, Rob exclaims happily, typing something on his phone and the whole scene is on Twitter in a matter of seconds.

  
“I fucking hate you.” Josh only hesitantly lets go of Hojong's hands and prays that he's not blushing because that would not only be inappropriate but also irrational.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Josh cannot say he isn't disappointed when he reads the many comments on the picture that Rob has posted that say things along the lines of Sam being replaced, Josh cheating on Sam, Hojong being cuter than Sam anyway and so on and so on but not a single comment by Sam himself. No playfully-butthurt Tweet, nothing.

 

It's silly to be mad at that, really. There's no reason. But somehow... He still kind of wishes for Sam to at least be a little jealous even though it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why would Sam be jealous? He never felt for Josh that way. He did tend to be a bit possessive, especially in the earlier stages of their friendship but there is no reason for him to be jealous about Josh kissing some other guy's hands.

 

Josh feels stupid and irrational and all of the things he normally hates about people. He should be glad, shouldn't he? That Sam isn't saying anything that would inflict any hope? That would be the reasonable way, right?

 

He doesn't know anymore. He doesn't even know if he actually still cares that much. He does care. He still cares about what Sam thinks of him and if he thinks about him at all. If he also sometimes sits in the same room as his new team mates and wishes everything was like it used to be, no matter how imperfect it had been. He even wonders if maybe Reignover is approaching Sam the way that Hojong approaches Josh because hell, that would be silly.

 

But does he still care whether Ashley is in Sam's room or not? If he is going to spend the evening with her or with Josh? Does he still care about whether or not a fight between those two was serious or not, if a fight between _him and Sam_ was serious? Okay, the last part definitely. But the part with Ashley? Not really if he's being honest.

 

It's a strange feeling. He thinks of Ashley and feels... nothing. He thinks of Sam and... still feels something. But not as intensely as months ago. Is this what they all call “healing”? Because it doesn't feel like it. Shouldn't it feel good? Shouldn't he feel relieved?

 

Maybe he doesn't work, maybe his mind doesn't work like it's supposed to do because he could swear... He almost feels like... He's missing it? Like he is missing the feeling of pining and hopelessness paired with small glimmers of hope shining through every now and again, always ready to bait him into another evening of burying his head in his pillows, cursing at himself. It's almost like he's so used to feeling miserable about the whole situation that he doesn't know how to deal with the absence of it.

 

And it's been absent for quite a while now. At least a few weeks. He hasn't seen Sam for quite some time but he doesn't actually believe that this is the reason. He doesn't really picture himself as an “out of sight – out of mind” kind of person. But somehow, without actually noticing, he hasn't actively thought of Sam in weeks. Yes, he has done it every now and then but compared to a few months ago and the time right after leaving TL... It hasn't been all too much.

 

Josh is a rationalist, someone who always wants to know the reasons for things that are happening, so thinking about all this is more than confusing. It is easy to find reasons for loving Sam. He is kind and innocent and caring and probably everything you would want in both a friend and a boyfriend. But finding reasons to stop loving him? That sounds like an impossibility. But it's happening, isn't it? Kind of at least.

 

Maybe he should just embrace it. Why wouldn't you let go of feelings that you didn't want to have in the first place? He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand why there's something in him that screams for these feelings to return to the extent they used to have because they've been a part of him for so long.

 

Maybe he is just insane.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The first day of IEM flies past Josh in a blurry. Most of it. He remembers a few things crystal clear. He remembers him and Hojong being all over each other like it's a habit they've fallen into. Hojong hugging him for no reason, Josh ruffling his hair, explaining things to him, them almost cuddling on the coach as Dylan goes through the scrim games – and later tournament games – with them.

 

He also remembers seeing Sam again, the slight ache in his heart reminding him that he is not quite over it, yet. But it doesn't hurt as much as it used to and true to his feeling from only a day before it makes him almost feel empty. He's almost exclusively happy to see his friend again after weeks in Korea, talking to him again and giving each other updates on what has happened during the time they haven't been together. But it's only the few skips of his heart beat that signal him that this boy is more than a friend to him.

 

They beat J-Team, lose to Samsung Galaxy, beat J-Team again, go to Semis against Kongdoo Monster. It all happens, it's all there but somehow it seems surreal. Josh just goes high on the wins, on the feeling that maybe, just maybe they can do something. His hands find Hojong's all the time, he messages Sam sometimes, promising that they'll meet in Finals before wrapping his arm around Hojong's shoulders again.

 

He meets Sam in the evening before Day 2. They sit down together in some tiny Café where them and the waitress have quite a hard time communicating because well... Neither Sam nor Josh speak Korean and the poor woman is not exactly great at English. But it works out in the end. They get themselves hot chocolate – no caffeine in the evening, especially if you have to get some sleep – and some snack that Josh can't even start to pronounce the name of.

 

“Do you like your new team?”, Josh asks after the obligatory small-talk.

 

“Well, it's not _that_ different”, Sam shrugs, “unless Gwangjin is back on the main team... We got Gilmer now, too. New coach... And Yeujin is new, too. ...Wow, it's actually very different, isn't it?” He laughs at it. Josh joins in. It's actually crazy. How he left the team, so naturally his team is all new but Sam has stayed and it's still all new.

 

“I know that feeling.” Josh smiles sympathetically.

 

“And you? How is playing in the most undefinable team colours?”

 

Josh laughs, it's a lousy reference to a half-drunk conversation they once had about NA having a million blue-schemed team colours, some reddish ones but what the hell is IMT's colour even?

 

“It's fun, really. Everyone's super nice, the staff is... significantly more bearable for me. Well yeah, basically the team is just extremely great to be around. I'm honestly happy that I decided to do this. Even though I didn't actually want to leave you out to dry like this.” He laughs because maybe it's really a joke but maybe he's also being honest about not wanting to leave Sam. Of course he didn't want to, for obvious reasons, but he had also wanted to leave the team and the whole situation pretty badly.

 

“You don't have to apologize. I'm glad you left.” _Ouch._ That stings a little, even though Josh is sure that it's actually a joke.

 

“Don't look at me like that”, Sam laughs, “I'm just glad you left before you would've killed Loco. Like, I could barely watch you enter the kitchen without being afraid you would grab a knife to stab him.”

 

“Wow, and I thought that everyone let me have their food during the last few weeks because they were trying to be nice and keep me.” Josh plays butt-hurt until it leads to light-hearted chuckling yet again.

 

Josh misses that. Just talking nonsense together. Just being themselves without caring about anything in the world. Sam is valuable. Sam is someone he wants to keep one way or another.

 

And maybe, he thinks, maybe now keeping him as a friend will be enough.

 

~*~*~*~

 

They can't beat Korea. Neither Immortals nor Team Liquid are capable of that. To be fair, maybe Immortals had the better shot out of the two but in the end, even though KDM aren't on Samsumg's level in any way, they are good and better than an unpracticed NA team. Let's say Josh is disappointed but not surprised.

 

“You sad, Joshie?”, Hojong asks when Josh lets himself fall onto his bed face-first and the only answer that comes out is some unintelligible mumbling that makes even less sense since it's blocked by a bunch of pillows.

 

Josh sighs and turns on his back, hands folded over his belly, his eyes fixating the ceiling. “I don't know. No one's mad that we couldn't win. It would've been unrealistic anyway but... I don't know, I guess it would've just been nice to win. Like, when you can almost grab victory it kinda sucks when you can't get your hands on it, in the end.”

 

He doesn't even have to turn his head in Hojong's direction to know that the poor Korean probably can't make sense of what he's just said. It's fine, he doesn't blame him. If Hojong told him something in Korean, he wouldn't understand him either.

 

“I am a little sad maybe”, he says eventually. A rather unspecific way of saying what Hojong wasn't quite able to understand.

 

“We played good. Don't have to be sad.” This time, Josh turns to see Hojong smile at him reassuringly. He returns it.

 

“You miss your old team?”, Hojong asks suddenly, throwing Josh a bit off-guard. _Where does that come from, now?_

 

He thinks. He has thought about that a lot already. It's not a hard question to answer, really. However, it does have some nuance to it, it's not black and white. Maybe if it was it would be easier to talk about it.

 

“No”, he decides to answer after some moments, “...Sam, Lourlo, sometimes. But... not as much anymore.”

 

It's as much as Josh can say. That's all he can put into words. The rest of it, the good and bad memories, the exact description of how much or how little he misses Sam and the rest of them and how much he doesn't miss them for various reasons, is all somewhere in the back of his head, almost unreachable.

 

“I miss Chanyong sometimes”, Hojong states bluntly and Josh needs a moment to understand who Chanyong even is. _Ambition._ In a world where you are bombarded with sometimes, sometimes not, meaningless nicknames it's hard to memorize all the actual names of every goddamn player from every goddamn region. But, for some reason, he does know Ambition's.

 

“And now?” Josh turns on his side, locking eyes with Hojong who's sitting on his own bed. “Now we've told each other how much or not we miss our old team mates and what are we doing with that now?”

 

Hojong shrugs. “Don't know. ...Chanyong kissed me once”, he adds as moments of silences have passed by.

 

Josh snorts. It's ridiculous, isn't it? This whole scene is absurd and the more he thinks about it the more he sees parallels between himself and Hojong. The “toxic” past, the touchy-ness, the sense of humour they share. ...Being kissed by a friend.

 

He remembers it too well, honestly. Him and Sam stealing some liquor from the super market – thank God no one ever found out about that – and then getting drunk together as no one else was home. Sam being a fucking lightweight and Josh taking it a bit too well for his own good. Sam was completely done when Josh was only feeling tipsy. But Sam was joking around without giving Josh a chance to even get the situation under control.

 

He joked about the two of them marrying if they both end up old and alone, without a wife or kids or anything that the average person thinks of as “happiness”. Josh had accepted with a happy bubble in his chest, a foolish spark of hope that the wished would vanish. Sam then leaned forward, pressing his lips onto Josh's, reasoning with “Doesn't the groom kiss his bride?” and the thing was done for.

 

Josh never mentioned it. Ever. He thought about it but when he saw Sam's massive hangover the next morning and heard him asking what the hell had happened he couldn't do it. In the end, it was Josh trying not to touch his lip overly frequently, still feeling the kiss there and Sam not having the slightest clue that they had basically agreed to marry and then kissed. He never remembered any of it. And if he did, he never mentioned it.

 

“Was he drunk?”

 

“Mean.”

 

Josh snorts, a joyless sound. “I'm serious. Was he?”

 

Hojong takes a while to answer and, in the end, he doesn't. He just nods ever so slightly.

 

“They do that sometimes, I guess. Kiss friends when drunk I mean. It's cruel, isn't it?” Josh looks down to the floor as if it would help him make any sense of this situation but it's just glaring back, silent and secretive and not willing to help him out there. Mean floor.

 

“I liked it.”

 

Josh expects something like that to sound melancholic or almost happy, at least bitter-sweet. But the way Hojong says it, it sounds like a confession. It sounds like something he has never been able to even think and even less so say out loud.

 

“I don't doubt that. I liked it, too. When Sam kissed me. But the next morning they just wake up and don't know anything about it anymore or at least pretend like they don't and you never talk about it ever again. That's the cruel part”, Josh's voice is getting more and more quiet as he's speaking because probably he is again running against a language barrier.

 

Hojong understands it, though. At least so he thinks. He wants to say something, wants to explain how he feels about it but he can't find the words. It's hard to express yourself when you are less than confident in a language. He doesn't know how to put into words how it feels to long for your friend's touch and think about a simple drunken kiss that didn't last longer than a few seconds all the time. How it feels to realize that you might actually like a boy more than you are supposed to do. When you realize that you like this boy while you have crowds of girls surrounding you and a family that expects you to marry a typical, pretty girl and have children and finally have a normal life.

 

Honestly, he already ignores this expectation by being 24 without being anywhere near having a girlfriend and by going to America, far away from a normal life and a normal job. And he's probably straying further away from it just by _wanting_ to tell Josh all this because it makes all of this _real._ Simply wanting to talk about it makes it a thing that's real and it's scary.

 

“It's okay. I get what you mean”, Josh says as if he's read his thoughts. It's half joking, half sad and Hojong is aware that Josh would probably want to _actually_ talk to him, explain all those things he wants to in the language Hojong only barely understands but that Josh is so proficient at using. So, honestly, Hojong doesn't believe that it's “okay”.

 

“Same with you and Lourlo, no?”

 

Josh hums. Hojong gets it. That they've been let down in a similar way even though Josh seems a lot more open about it, at least compared to Hojong.

 

“Would you kiss me? When drunk?”, he finds himself asking. He doesn't know what he wants to hear or what he expects to hear or if he wants to hear anything at all.

 

Josh looks at Hojong again. He's blushing, it's painfully obvious but he wouldn't ever admit that to himself. He considers. Doesn't know what's the appropriate thing to say or if there's a right answer to this question.

 

“No”, he says eventually. “Kissing someone only when drunk is an asshole thing to do.”

 

“And not drunk?”

 

Josh thinks again. “Maybe”, he answers honestly, “But... Not yet. I don't think I would do it right now or anything. But some time maybe.”

 

He almost shocks himself by how honest those words sound and how honest they actually are. He can't say he's not in some way attracted to Hojong, it's hard not to be if you are a human being after all. But he doesn't feel the same way as he did about Sam and maybe he doesn't even have to. Yet, his _maybe_ stays true and maybe always has a bit of _yes_ in it, doesn't it?

 

“Good”, Hojong replies, looks down.

 

~*~*~*~

 

After that, they go on like before. Hugging and holding hands before and after games and sometimes even in the middle of one. They are close, almost as close as Josh and Sam had been and Hojong and Chanyong.

 

There's just this _maybe_ flying around, somewhere in the air and sometimes Josh breathes it in and almost chokes on it because he doesn't know if it means more _yes_ or more _no._

 

He can never shake the feeling of replacing Sam with Hojong but maybe that's how it works in the end. That you leave the things behind that bother you – an emotionally draining team, a hopeless crush on your best friend and ever-lasting anger – and trade them for something that's undefined and will have to be sorted out in the end. But not now. It's not perfect but honestly, what is ever _perfect?_

 

 _Not perfect_ is not _bad._ It's _okay_ and _good_ and _pretty amazing_ all at once. And sometimes, when you know you have to stop chasing windmills, you can settle for _okay_ and embrace _good_ and hope for _pretty amazing._

 

Right now it's _okay,_ it's teasing and fun and a joke for the rest of the world. Maybe one day it could be _good._ It could be kissing and cuddling and more than that. It could be a relationship, secret or displayed to everyone. It could be something _good_ that doesn't hurt and is still fun and when fun turns to calm seriousness and bubbly feelings give in to honest caring and playing with thoughts about the future... Maybe then it would have the potential to be _pretty amazing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I guess that's it for now. I'm honestly a little sorry that they didn't kiss or anything and originally I had somethig different planned but the general vibe turned out differently in the end, so it kinda remained this semi-happy, melncholic mess right here. 
> 
> But I do hope you enjoyed this and if you want to cut my head off or kiss my feet (trust me, both's a punishment to me), you can leave me a comment and most know where you find me anyway.


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